The Painters of Lexieville

By Sharon Darrow

Lexieville, Arkansas, can hardly be called a real town. It's nothing but a jumble of unpainted shotgun shacks squatting at the end of a muddy, rutted road. To Pertrisha "Pert" Lexie, that road is like a sign, a warning that there's no welcome for outsiders who might venture into Lexieville, and little chance of her getting out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Darrow
• Release date: Mar 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9780998687827

Book preview

Pert

A couple of weeks ago when my gym teacher, Coach Corder, announced this week’s topic and told us who the teachers would be, I determined to steer clear. Mrs. Turnbull, the main Lexieville caseworker from the Spring County Welfare Department and Katie, her helper, had volunteered to take mornings off to instruct us in the techniques of the Vernal chapter of the Arkansas Women’s Self-Defense League. I’d managed to pretend to be sick for three days, and now had to hope they wouldn’t recognize me and have to act friendly.

I opened the gym door and my ears filled with echoes, balls bouncing, rubber soles squeaking on the wood floor, and the bleachers clattering underfoot as the girls climbed up and sat down. But mostly the voices hit me, all high-pitched and giggly. And not one of them interested in whether I showed up or not. Except maybe Raynell, and she didn’t count. Then came the whistle for roll call, and I had to join those girls all dressed like me in purple and yellow—the only time we all dressed alike.

When Coach got through the K’s and called out, Lexie, Pert, I had to answer, No shoes.

Two demerits, Coach said. She squiggled them down in her book—one mark per shoe, I guess.

Lexie, Raynell.

My cousin Raynell’s pale little voice said, Here.

I couldn’t see where she sat, but I knew without me there she’d be all closed up, hands between her knobby knees to hide her bitten-up nails, flimsy hair screening off her face from the girls on both sides.

Brittany Lee Hathaway and a couple of her followers jostled each other around on the bench, their shiny long hair pulled up for class, ponytails bouncing and flitting all around.

Coach Corder blew her whistle. Girls, let’s get to work. We’ll let Mrs. Turnbull and Katie take right up where they left off yesterday.

Mrs. Turnbull, in a navy blue sweatsuit, her frosted hair in a curly bob, looked as neat as she did in her office suits and skirts. Katie set up an easel and an orange posterboard sign. The poster said:

1) STOMP INSTEP

2) BACKWARD KICK TO THE KNEE

3) JAM NOSE WITH HEEL OF HAND TO NOSTRILS

4) PULL EYELIDS

Just reading it made me shiver. But oohs and aahs and a few giggles rose from the stands.

Mrs. Turnbull looked up and smiled. Now, girls, let’s get serious, she said. Remember, this is not a laughing matter. This is about defense, not revenge.

Katie and Mrs. Turnbull stepped onto the mats and pantomimed stomps on each other’s feet, backward kicks against kneecaps, and all the rest. The girls laughed and took it all in like a show.

When they got finished Katie called out, Are there volunteers? Brittany Lee jumped right up, of course, knowing what to do and how to do it.

Mrs. Turnbull scanned the bleachers. Any more volunteers?

I put my head down and tried to disappear. Mrs. Turnbull hooked and reeled in three or four girls for her demonstration, and I sat up to watch. But as I straightened up good, Turnbull got me in her sights.

She pointed at me and jiggled her hand up and down trying to think of my name. Lexie, she said, and waved me over to her group.

My socks slipped a little on the wood floor, then sank into the mat.

Mrs. Turnbull described the moves to us, said how we should be resourceful in our self-defense. If the aggressor tries to carry you away upside down, pinch his inner thighs. And pinch hard, she said. Katie nodded.

Mrs. Turnbull put a hand on my shoulder. Now for the backward knee jab. She looked at me. What was your first name again?

Pert, I said, and looked down. On the mat my white socks had the pale orangey stain of Lexieville dirt on their toes.

Pert, she said, like, Oh, yes, now I remember.

How she’d gotten so far along in that County Welfare job and still not know any better than to recognize a person in public was a wonder to me.

Pert, try to grab me from behind.

I pretended to grab. She pretended to rear back and kick out my kneecap, then we switched places.

Mrs. Turnbull and Katie chose more girls until the whole class got a turn, even Raynell, all red in the face. When class was almost over, Brittany Lee got the job of demonstrating the use of keys, pencils, nail files, and other household items in case of a sneak attack. Katie finished it up by saying, And always tell someone.

Mrs. Turnbull put up another posterboard sign, one with a drawing of a determined but happy-looking girl. She pointed at her and ended the whole show by saying, You have a right to put boundaries around your own body. It is yours. If you ever have cause to use these methods, defend yourself. Don’t be a victim.

That picture girl had dotted lines drawn all around her body, like a case to fit into. No wonder she smiled. I’d never imagined myself like that, with an invisible picket fence around me nothing could get through.

When the bell rang, I figured I’d learned just about everything I needed to defend myself no matter what. And I knew what that girl in Mrs. Turnbull’s picture knew. Courage was the main thing.

I slid across the floor in my socks. Everything sounded and looked better: the voices echoing, the mats being stacked up, the floor shining golden, and the sun cutting through the tall windows onto purple-and-gold Sardis High Swamp Cats banners. I belonged to myself.

In the locker room I dressed in my jeans and a navy blue T-shirt Jobe’d gotten free from the auto supply store where he did odd jobs every once in a while. He’d let me wear it first. The color almost made my eyes look dark blue, and the thick cotton still had the dye smell in it. If I held my notebook just right, no one had to see the square white letters spelling out Engine Joe’s Motor Parts across my chest.

When I got to math class, I opened my book and tried to get to work, but I hadn’t counted on Brittany Lee up in the front row making so much racket. She crossed her legs and kicked one foot, making the tassels on her shoes jingle, the only sound in that quiet room besides pencils scratching.

School used to be okay before BLH and those other Vernal town kids moved out here in junior high. Not long after she moved here, I heard Brittany Lee say something under her breath to her best friend, Mindy. I caught the word trash about the time they both cut their eyes over at me, then seeing me watching, sat and studied the lettuce and mayonnaise oozing out from their thick pink ham sandwiches After that it got like she smelled me or something.

When the bell freed us from math class for lunch, I was more than ready.

I went through the cafeteria line and got my lunch tray, unable to hide the white vinyl letters on my shirt while I carried it. I had to walk past Brittany Lee to get to my usual table on the other side of the cafeteria. Not talking, me and the other girls from Lexieville hurried up and ate our best meal of the day. Every so often we looked to see if anybody noticed us, but no one paid us any attention. Over here in the corner, we knew our place.

The other Lexieville girls looked just like me: secondhand faded jeans in a style a couple of years past, cheap no-name athletic shoes, our hair doing whatever—too straight, too curly, too oily, too limp.

But there was one thing that set me apart. Now I had that picture in my head of the girl safe inside her boundary lines, and I planned on getting out. Some of them might have the same idea, but some sure didn’t.

One of them who didn’t was Raynell.

Raynell was the oldest of seven children by who-knew-how-many fathers. Gloria, her mother and my father’s niece, still hadn’t even gotten around to naming the last two kids. We all just called them Boy and Little Sissy.

Raynell squirted another packet of mustard on her corn dog, and it struck me that I had to get away from her, like if I didn’t get up and out of that lunchroom right then, I’d never get out, never get away from Lexieville.

I jumped up to take my half-empty tray back. But something made me stop, lean over the table, and warn her. Raynell, I whispered, you better wake up or you’re going to end up just like your mother.

Raynell looked up, a smear of mustard on her upper lip, then tears came into her brown eyes. Now I’d done it.

I walked away, emptied my tray into the garbage, and stuck it on the dishwasher conveyor belt.

Outside, I closed my eyes and leaned against the warm brick wall of the school building, trying not to see Raynell and her mustard face. She should just be glad I cared.

SPRING COUNTY WELFARE DEPARTMENT

HOME VISIT FORM

SOCIAL WORKER: Alice Turnbull

CLIENT: Gloria Ellen Lexie & family

ADDRESS: Lexieville Circle (4th house on right)

PURPOSE: Follow up and investigate elementary school teachers’ concerns over the condition and health of the younger children.

FINDINGS: In my early afternoon visit, I found their clothing in piles on the floor, old food scraps and mouse droppings in the kitchen cabinets, and the two youngest children splashing in the muddy yard. I awakened Gloria, who was dressed in rumpled clothes that appeared to have been worn for some time.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Gloria (32): Life skills and Job Training—12 week program (mandatory).

Sissy (5) and Boy (3): Enroll in preschool Early Start program.

Raynell Louise (17), Cody Michael (14), Rhonda Lee and Ronnie Lee (twins, 11), and Will (9): Confirm all enrolled in free breakfast and lunch program.

FOLLOW-UP:

Family: Monthly drop-in home visit.

Gloria: Biweekly office visit and counseling session.

Pert

The bus rocked up onto the asphalt from the school driveway. We turned south on Valley road between the paper company’s tall skinny pines and drove on through the blotchy shade to the scraggly part where they’d planted new baby trees to replace those already cut down. Low sunlight flashed through the pine tree rows. At the crossroads just past the bait shop-gas station-convenience store, Sardis’s only business, we turned onto the gravel road toward Lexieville. A few yards down the slope, the